Having grown up with scrub-jays, I can attest that they are
aggressive and opportunistic, and they will certainly prey on any
eggs or nestlings they can find. But the local Steller's jays run
amok in my Redmond yard every spring and they seem to commit as much
mayhem and murder as I remember from the scrubs.

One thing to be said for the scrubs is that they are enormously
entertaining--they're smart, curious, and flamboyant. You won't be
bored if they do show up in your neighborhood.

Perhaps this has already been discussed here and I've missed it, but
is there any reason to think that the range expansion of the scrub-
jays is anything other than "natural"? That is, is it the result of
increased plantings of non-native oaks in urban areas of Puget Sound,
for instance? I'd be interested in what folks think...

Daniel Brown
www.danieljamesbrown.com



On Oct 20, 2008, at 4:51 PM, Dennis Paulson wrote:

> Hello, all.
>
> It's interesting to read all the enthusiasm for the scrub-jay
> invasion on tweeters. There is a saying to the effect "be careful,
> you may get what you wish for."
>
> Friends of mine in Portland have scrub-jays in their yard, and they
> have learned to dislike them fairly vigorously. They are active
> birders and bird lovers (I'm protecting their privacy on purpose),
> but the scrub-jays have pushed them beyond the pale. The jays take
> the eggs and/or young of every open-nesting species that tries to
> nest in their yard, and they bully the other birds unmercifully,
> often seeming to purposefully (according to my friends, both of
> whom have scientific backgrounds) fly in to their feeders just to
> scatter all the other birds. I seem to remember the word
> "terrorists" being used.
>
> So it may be a mixed blessing when scrub-jays colonize all of the
> King County lowlands, which they probably will. I'd love to see one
> in my yard, but that is tempered by all the stories I've heard. We
> already have a full complement of crows, effective nest robbers
> that they are, and adding scrub-jays to the mix may be hard on our
> local avifauna. Mike Donahue pointed that Anna's Hummingbirds,
> those other California immigrants, "know" scrub-jays in an
> evolutionary sense, but our local birds don't.
>
> I can't be too grumpy, however, when I've just returned from a
> successful Hawk Owl hunt.
>
> Dennis
> -----
> Dennis Paulson
> 1724 NE 98 St.
> Seattle, WA 98115
> 206-528-1382
> dennispaulson at comcast.net
>
>
>
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Daniel Brown
heron-hill at comcast.net



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